Top: CerebrateSV Hike at Mt. Madonna; Bottom: Publisher Mitchell Levy, Karen Kang (me) and Melbourne Social Media Expert Kate Kendall

I re-learned three things this weekend:

1. Listen to your heart
2. Your core values drive personal branding
3. Deep relationships with a small number of people trumps networking in numbers

I was honored to be a part of a small group of extraordinary people at CerebrateSV http://bit.ly/bCQhtH.  Over the last three days, on a mountaintop south of Silicon Valley, we talked about ourselves, our ideas and our passions.  The experience as one attendee put it was “magical.”

All the participants were hand-picked as much for their accomplishments as for their authenticity of spirit.  The gathering worked so well because we learned to trust one another in a short amount of time.

Rajesh Setty (http://twitter.com/UpbeatNow), the co-organizer with his beautiful wife Kavitha, is a man of incredible love for humanity.  We followed his lead to open our hearts and minds to new people and new possibilities.  I went into the CerebrateSV event with no preconceived notions.  Only that Rajesh said that I would not regret it.

I am amazed at what has transpired over 48 hours.  I have new friends who I know I will be connected to for life.  I have new business partners who will collaborate with me on projects that could not happen without their help.  I have speaking and consulting opportunities that would not have come my way otherwise.  But, all this came without expectation on my part or theirs.  That is the beauty of the Cerebrate concept.  Put a small number of people in a setting conducive to sharing and collaboration….and see what happens.

Just listen to your heart.  Follow your core values and let your brand flow from the inside out.  Deepen your relationships with shared experiences.  Let’s all CEREBRATE!

(Photos above from Darius Miranda; photos below from Raj Setty)

http://bit.ly/cQZpe3

Social media has delivered a wonderful wake-up call for companies stuck in the past. You can’t hide your deficiencies or bad behavior behind a slick ad campaign. You may get a boost in brand awareness, but you won’t build brand equity or value until you deliver on the expectations for your brand. Why? Because millions of people are getting in on the brand conversation through Twitter, Facebook, and a myriad of online forums. Advertisers and mass media no longer control brand communication in a one-way stream.

Brand is a marriage between the rational (your competitive positioning in the market) and the irrational (the emotional response to you). Building a unique position forms the foundation for a sustainable brand. You need to target a key customer segment that has a problem that your product can solve better than any other. This is your positioning strategy.

Then you need to develop an emotional connection with your target customers. This is best done by consistently delivering a great brand experience—for instance, your product works, your service is friendly and responsive, your website is fun to navigate and maybe you have a personable and helpful social media presence. The stuff that most people think branding is about generally falls into the category of building the emotional connection. You know, like a logo, brand messages, brand symbols and images.

In the Branding Pyramid graphic above, the hierarchy in building a sustainable brand starts at the bottom of the pyramid. Here are the key steps:

1) Positioning and Brand Strategy. You’ve got to know where you are headed to achieve your goals. Without a good strategy, your ship will be rudderless and it will take you a lot longer to achieve success, if ever.

2) Whole Product. Well before you think about advertising, make sure you have developed a differentiated product that 1) works and that 2) customers want. Then, make sure you take responsibility for the “Whole Product”—that is, all the elements and partner added-value that the customer needs to receive full value from your offering.
3) Positioning Leadership. For a brand to be sustainable, you need to establish credibility in the market—though sales momentum and through the third-party endorsement of people who’s opinions carry weight (the market influencers).
4) Brand Experience. The brand experience that you deliver is your opportunity to wow customers and to have them keep coming back. How consistent are you in terms of brand behavior, visuals, and the tone and voice of your communications?
5) Brand Value. If you have done all these things, then you have probably won the loyalty and good will of your customers. You have a sustainable brand. With proper care and feeding your brand should live a long and rewarding life.

How close are you to achieving a sustainable brand? Find out by taking the interactive Brand Pyramid quiz on my website home page. I developed it somewhat tongue in cheek, but I think you’ll find it a valuable diagnostic tool. Let me know how you fare!

1) Branding without positioning. That’s like building a house without a foundation. Positioning makes clear your target audience, category, value proposition and differentiation. Without it, your brand will have no rational support—no reason for being.

2) Branding without a strategy. That’s like building a house without an idea of whether it is the Taj Mahal or a one-room cottage. Without a strategy, how will you determine what your brand personality, emotional connection, and brand experience should be?

3) Focusing on advertising before your product is ready to deliver real value to the market. Advertising will only shine a big spotlight on your deficits. You may get brand awareness but you won’t get brand equity.

4) Branding without consistent implementation—in your visual branding, your messaging, your actions, your products and your relationships. Branding is dynamic. You need to prove yourself everyday.

5) Branding without engaging the influencers. You need to condition the market before throwing your brand over the wall. Let key influencers understand and participate in what your brand is all about. Online and offline, they will help you accelerate adoption of your brand.

This list is probably different from most that you’ll see because other lists of branding mistakes usually focus on brand implementation. My focus is the strategy that drives implementation. What do YOU think is a strategic branding mistake? I’ll post the best comments in a future blog.

I met with my financial advisor recently, and he asked me why I was doing so well in this terrible recession when other consultants were hurting for business. My answer: Marketing and Branding.  I know we marketers will always say marketing works, but we are often the worst offenders.  That is, we are the cobbler’s children who run shoeless in the neighborhood.

I was recently one of the cobbler’s children—okay, maybe I was wearing one shoe. At the beginning of the year, business was light and the phone was rarely ringing. I decided that I would take this lull in business activity to refresh my brand, redo my website, launch some new services, get active in social media, educate through public speaking, and expand my networks online and offline. I did all that and can happily say it worked. I am now busy with some great new branding clients with a good pipeline of new business.

It helps if you have a good product and a strong position to start with, which I do. There are many marketing and branding consultants out there who will give you a laundry list of all their services. When you walk away, it’s lucky if you remember one of them. I have positioned myself as a positioning and brand strategy expert—a focused specialty—with a differentiated JumpStart Branding™ methodology. My value proposition: rapid delivery of high-value strategies with team consensus,

The moral to this story is that when economic times get tough, don’t batten down the hatches and wait for new business to come floating by, you have to invest in marketing to make your opportunities happen. I did, and can happily say that Branding Pays. :))

Once you have a brand, with your visual branding, messages and reputation, why change it? If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. However, for many of us, our branding may not work as well for us over time.

I’m a case in point. My consulting business has evolved over the years, but my site and my overall branding has not kept pace with the changes. I am due for a brand refresh. Energy Energy Design has just created a beautiful logo (see image above) and website redesign for me that keeps a design resemblance to my old stuff but makes it much more contemporary. The Spring Agency has helped me with my digital properties, including designing a digital video and making my website more interactive, with real-time feeds from Twitter in addition to my regular blog posts. Stay tuned for the website relaunch.

I’m still all about positioning and brand strategies. But, I wanted my website to reflect the new environment in which we are doing business. Today, customers want to have a relationship with you even if they are just window-shopping. When they come to your site, they want to see a human face, hear a human voice, read words that real people would say.

My brand refresh has many elements that work together. The refresh is meant to reinforce my reputation as a Silicon Valley brand strategist, create a more engaging experience for my website visitors and enable me to add value in new areas. Here’s a sneak peek of the work in progress [new blog posts are coming soon]:

http://s67940.gridserver.com/

The site will be live in about a week. So what do you think? Are the messages compelling? Is the redesign attractive and in keeping with my business focus? Can’t wait to hear from you!